Reverse Insomnia
by altered carbon
Summary: All Hakkai could do was sleep, and sleep some more. It didn't make any sense...especially the dreams.


Hey again everyone. I know I haven't posted anything in awhile, so I thought that I would throw this up here so you all don't go crazy from the lack of excellent stories from me! (Oh lord…my ego is so inflated) Anyway, it's kind of dark and whatnot. I just thought I should warn you.

Additional authors note: For those of you who don't know, insomnia is the "inability to fall asleep or to remain asleep long enough to feel rested." So reverse insomnia is sleeping in excess (obviously). Just thought I'd clear that up.

Another additional authors note: The numbers in the story, such as (1), (2), (3), and so on, refer to the footnotes, which can be found at the bottom of this page. Reading of the footnotes is not required; they are merely there as notes from me, clarification on something, or in some cases, for entertainment.

The very last additional authors note (grin): This is told from the point-of-view of Hakkai. I gave him a son in this story, because I think it would be cool if he had a son. This is pre - Kanan-being-kidnapped-and-Hakkai-going-on-a-rampage-and-Kanan-killing-herself. So yeah, when she was still alive and all that. (I made him a journalist, too. I thought that was a fitting profession for him.)

**Reverse Insomnia**

Here I am again.

I've slept for two days straight this time. I'm beginning to believe it may be unhealthy. The doctor says I have "reverse insomnia," but he also looks at me as if I was crazy.

I don't trust my doctor. _He_ looks crazy. We just sit in his office and eyeball each other, wondering how crazy we both really are, until he gives me some pills and tells me it's reverse insomnia.

I hate that idiot doctor.

His pills don't help. Did I mention that I slept for two days straight? Right through my son Kazuki's birthday. (1) Right through the cake and ice cream and presents and everything. Kanan was upset with me. But I just shrugged and apologized. What could I do? I was asleep. I really think something's wrong. It's happening more and more frequently every week. A day of sleep here, two days there. It's crazy.

Thank goodness I have a lot of off time coming to me at the office. My boss is angry with me, though. Ever since I've been having this abundance of sleep, my work has slipped. Well, if I'm completely honest, it's backslid terribly.

I'm a journalist, but for some reason the words aren't coming the way they used to. The other day I thought I'd written a fantastic article about the effects of drunken driving and violence in the community. Turns out all that I'd written was a single word in the middle of a snow-white sheet.

_Crash._

I couldn't make any sense of it. Neither could my boss.

I've got to get up and eat. I want toast, but I can't recall where we keep the bread. Everything is a little fuzzy at the edges.

There's Kanan sitting on the couch in the den. God, I love her. That's funny…she's dressed in black. I thought she hated that color. In the pantry. Next to the refrigerator. That's where the bread is. How strange. I was just about to ask Kanan, but it popped into my head. Go figure.

Kazuki's sitting at the kitchen table eating Fruit Loops and chocolate kisses. I want to tell him to stop, but I'm ashamed, having missed his birthday and all.

Kazuki has a black balloon wrapped around his tiny right wrist. For some reason, I feel like crying.

Later, the helium must have found a way out somehow. (2) The balloon floats, almost touching the table, looking like a shrunken head, wrinkled and distorted.

I don't want toast anymore. In fact, I'm sure it tastes like cardboard now. I hate it. But not as much as I hate that doctor.

I look at Kazuki again. Now his forehead is touching the table. His left hand is gently resting in the bowl of Fruit Loops. Droplets of milk are clinging to his skin, making his hand and arm seem surrealistically white.

I want to draw Kazuki up in my arms, but I can't. I know I shouldn't touch him, but I don't know why. He seems very distant, far away. The balloon is no longer attached to his wrist. Instead he wears a watch. I get close enough to look over his shoulder. 12:42, it says. 12:42. His watch has stopped. I must remember to send his watch to the store to be fixed.

Suddenly, now I am standing beside Kanan. She's still on the couch, watching television. The screen is blank, black, yet she stares at it as if it were the most important thing in the world. I want to speak to her, ask her how her day was, but I know I shouldn't. Or maybe I can't. Instead, I look at the black screen too.

Kanan says she's fine, but her lips never move. I tell her I'm fine too, but the words never reach my mouth.

Kanan nods her head, and suddenly the television lights up. I see a small child standing in a field of white grass. He is dressed entirely in black. So is Kanan; she's there too. The boy is holding a large black balloon with green numbers printed on it.

I strain to see the boy and the numbers.

It's Kazuki. The balloon reads 12:42.

I blink, and Kanan is gone. The TV shuts off. Andy is gone. The kitchen is empty.

Have I fallen asleep again? I just don't know.

I have to find out what time it is. But my watch, like Kazuki's, is broken. The numbers stare back at me as if I am somehow wrong, deathly wrong.

12:42. _12:42!_

I can't breathe. I am surrounded by clocks. Clocks upon clocks upon clocks. "12:42," they are singing to me. "12:42!" they scream. And I begin to scream along with them.

Suddenly I am in bed. I must have been sleeping. Or dreaming.

I climb out of bed and see that I am wearing black silk pajamas. (3) I don't recall ever changing into these. Then again, I don't remember much at all, except black.

I slowly walk to Kazuki's room. The door is shut. I hear crying.

I knock, but no one answers my call. I knock louder. Still no answer. I open the door. The room is bare, white. All of it --- the floor, he ceiling, the walls. White.

I am in bed again, naked. My right eye itches uncomfortably and is difficult to see out of. Kanan is lying next to me. Her lips are blue, like ice.

I swing my legs over the side of the bed and grab a robe that once was red. (4) It has faded to gray, dark gray. If I didn't know any better, I'd say it was black.

Then I am staring at the doctor in his linoleum room. He tells me I am crazy and gives me some pills. He says I have reverse insomnia again. I throw the pills away, but they never hit the ground. Instead, the doctor opens his mouth and swallows them whole. His mouth becomes wider and wider until the whole room is sucked into his orifice.

The doctor swallows me.

I'm back in Kazuki's room, but this time it looks as it should --- a bunk bed, a dresser, model airplanes I helped him make hanging from the ceiling. Kazuki is sitting on his bed coloring. I quietly step over the little cars on his floor, noticing that he has been playing "demolition derby" again. I look at the page he is so busily scribbling on. In large dark letters is the word **_CRASH_**.

I'm hungry again. I go back to the kitchen. On the expansive kitchen table are three white cots. I don't remember Kanan buying new furniture. And why would she put cots on the kitchen table? Are they some kind of strange decoration? (5)

The cots are disturbing somehow. They remind me of the crazy doctor and his stupid pills. The brightness of the white cots becomes all consuming. My head begins to throb in time to the pulsing itch of my right eye.

I deny the existence of the furniture, try to block the cots out of my mind long enough to eat something. But they loom before me with something new attached to each of them --- large white intercoms. Now all I can see are bright, bright lights.

I feel like a deer. Trapped. Transfixed by headlights, unable or unwilling to run.

The intercoms are looking at me accusingly. They stand there like all-powerful gods on their metal poles attached to the cots. A black sound oozes from them. I want to stop their noise. I have to stop them! But I cannot.

I listen.

"The woman and boy were DOA, doctor. (6) The man is identified as Cho Hakkai. He is comatose and has multiple contusions on the head and upper torso. His right eye was removed. We had to do it. There was nothing we could do to save it. His condition is critical, sir."

The doctor's voice comes through another intercom. "How did it happen?"

From the third intercom: "Drunk driver. Hit the family head-on coming out of a parking lot.

"Estimated time of death for the woman and boy --- 12:42."

The oozing black noise ceases.

A plug dangles like a limp snake from one of the white cots. It is plugged into everything and nothing.

Crying, I yank it forcefully.

Suddenly, I am asleep. Deep, deep asleep…

* * *

The End…**or is it**? (Suspenseful music in background) 

Hey, come on…I had to add a little comic relief at the end to lighten the mood, right?

Hope you all enjoyed. **Please review. **Oh yeah, the foot notes…

1 – Kazuki means either "pleasant peace" or "first of a new generation" in Japanese.

2 – This jump between when the balloon was full and when the helium ran out of it seemed kind of odd to me, but I just couldn't think of anything to put in between the two. Oh, well.

3 – I just had to put Hakkai in silk PJ's, guys. I found the idea very, _very_ enticing.

4 – I didn't realize that this sentenced rhymed when I was writing it. That's interesting.

5 – I find this example of male-ignorance-of-decorations quite amusing. I mean, who would decorate their kitchen with cots? At least he knows that it's a weird thing.

6 – DOA means dead on arrival (as in arrival at the hospital).


End file.
